Today I found a few [qmail-smtpd] <defunct> processes.
qmaild 1361 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z Apr05 0:00 [qmail-smtpd] <defunct>
qmaild 6299 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z Feb04 0:00 [qmail-smtpd] <defunct>
qmaild 7281 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z Feb03 0:00 [qmail-smtpd] <defunct>
qmaild 8270 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z Mar10 0:00 [qmail-smtpd] <defunct>
qmaild 9694 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z Mar19 0:00 [qmail-smtpd] <defunct>
qmaild 11873 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z Apr07 0:00 [qmail-smtpd] <defunct>
qmaild 14708 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z Mar16 0:00 [qmail-smtpd] <defunct>
qmaild 24177 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z Mar23 0:00 [qmail-smtpd] <defunct>
Anyone got any idea why they are there. I tried to restart qmail but they are still there. Also tried to kill them manually but they don't disappear.
[qmail-smtpd] <defunct>
Re: [qmail-smtpd] <defunct>
OK, I found out that they are zombie processes which naturally cannot be killed. Great naming BTW
. Seems to indicate something is failing with the qmail process. I use spamdyke. Anyone else see these zombie processes using spamdyke? Running Plesk 8.6 on CentOS 5.4.

Re: [qmail-smtpd] <defunct>
Just as an info. I know it wont help you much. I use spamdyke too, but on a Plesk9.3 CentOS5.4 x86_64 server.
My output:
Did you aply the qmail.queue patch from parallels lately?
My output:
There must be some corrsponding log entry. What do they say?ps -ef | grep qmail
qmails 2767 1 0 Apr04 ? 00:00:00 qmail-send
qmaill 2769 2767 0 Apr04 ? 00:00:00 splogger qmail
root 2770 2767 0 Apr04 ? 00:00:00 qmail-lspawn | /usr/bin/deliverquota ./Maildir
qmailr 2771 2767 0 Apr04 ? 00:00:00 qmail-rspawn
qmailq 2772 2767 0 Apr04 ? 00:00:00 qmail-clean
root 28968 27933 0 10:02 pts/0 00:00:00 grep qmail
Did you aply the qmail.queue patch from parallels lately?
Re: [qmail-smtpd] <defunct>
Thanks for your input!
I'm running Plesk 8.6 and thought the patching mainly was focused on 9.X releases. Or am I wrong?
I checked the log for Apr 7 and found this:
Apr 7 11:35:24 server7 pop3d: Connection, ip=[xxx.yyy.zzz.xxx]
Apr 7 11:35:24 server7 pop3d: IMAP connect from @ [xxx.yyy.zzz.xxx]Unable to connect to Plesk Database: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)
Apr 7 11:35:24 server7 pop3d: System error 2: No such file or directory
Apr 7 11:35:24 server7 pop3d: smtp_lock_mysql: Unable to connect to the mysql database, smtp-lock will not workINFO: LOGIN, user=username@userdomain.com, ip=[xxx.yyy.zzz.xxx]
One of my zombies id from Apr 7. Conicidence?
I'm running Plesk 8.6 and thought the patching mainly was focused on 9.X releases. Or am I wrong?
I checked the log for Apr 7 and found this:
Apr 7 11:35:24 server7 pop3d: Connection, ip=[xxx.yyy.zzz.xxx]
Apr 7 11:35:24 server7 pop3d: IMAP connect from @ [xxx.yyy.zzz.xxx]Unable to connect to Plesk Database: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)
Apr 7 11:35:24 server7 pop3d: System error 2: No such file or directory
Apr 7 11:35:24 server7 pop3d: smtp_lock_mysql: Unable to connect to the mysql database, smtp-lock will not workINFO: LOGIN, user=username@userdomain.com, ip=[xxx.yyy.zzz.xxx]
One of my zombies id from Apr 7. Conicidence?
Re: [qmail-smtpd] <defunct>
maybe. check:
/var/log/mysqld.log
/var/log/mysqld.log
Re: [qmail-smtpd] <defunct>
Yeah, sorry, forgot about that. The log shows that mysql was restarted at that time, so that might have triggered it. Also noticed that I had a few spamdyke processes that had been running for quite some time. Killed them off and then the zombie processes disappeared as well. Will probably have to keep an eye on this...